The Remote Island : Top Ten New Shows Fall 2008

Put Your Hands Together For The Fall 2008 Season!

Bryan Christian — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:15:00 GMT

If this were a stadium full of slavering TV fans, we'd be all like "Are you people ready to get the new season started? How many of y'all are hot for Prison Break? [pause for audience hollering] How many of y'all wanna give it up for Gossip Girl? [another pause, holding the microphone out to the bleachers] Yeaaaaaahhhh..." And then we'd, like, do a little air guitar pose while fireworks went off in the shape of Ben Silverman and we'd launch the new TV season with all the fanfare that it deserves.

But this ain't a stadium full of maniacally excited couch surfers. It's just the web. On a holiday. So if you're reading this, for God's sake, don't. Find a friend who's watching Prison Break or Gossip Girl (or heck, even Raising The Bar) that you can get to in the next, um, 45 minutes, and run over there and hang out a little, have a drink, socialize. Then meet back here tomorrow morning, 'cause we got a lot of fun stuff going on this year to share with you, starting today with our full Top Ten lists of new and returning shows below, and tomorrow with recaps and news on all your favorite shows.

See ya tomorrow when you're too hungover to get anything done at work!

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

TOP TEN RETURNING SHOWS

#1. "30 Rock" & "Terminator"
#2. "Dexter"
#3. "Gossip Girl"
#4. "Pushing Daisies"
#5. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
#6. "Heroes"
#7. "Dirty Sexy Money"
#8. "House"
#9. "Entourage" / "Californication"
#10. "The Shield"

The Weekly Rewind: Summer's End

Ben Kallen — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:35:00 GMT

Man, what an action-packed few days! We had the Olympics finale, a political convention, the start of a big holiday weekend, and -- most important of all -- the buildup to the new fall TV season. So how 'bout we look back on it all with the highlights of the week:

We counted down the top 10 new shows and the top 10 returning shows for the upcoming season. That's, yes, 20 shows worth watching. We know that some critics are worried about the overall quality of the fall schedule... but, really, if 20 isn't enough for them, they should maybe start thinking about reading more books.

We found 18 "memorable TV moments" that the Emmy people left off their list. And yet they still won't let us present the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy!

We met the new American Idol judge, and she's attractive, articulate and successful. Let's hope she keeps her Coke cup away from Paula.

We watched some hilariously terrible music videos featuring TV stars. If you've ever wondered what the Internet was made for, this is it.

We thought we'd lost Denise Richards, and then we maybe got her back, but then we weren't sure we really wanted her after all. Just like Charlie in that one episode of Two and a Half Men!

We learned that even after all this time, we're still amused by the phrase "Stifler's mom."

We saw Mackenzie Phillips get in trouble with drugs, and David Duchovny get in trouble with sex. Where the hell is Dr. Drew when you need him?

Helloooo, Mr. Phelps! Goodbyyyye, Mr. Bush!

We got ready to spend the waning days of summer with a nice long weekend of TV. Hey, it's our job -- what's your excuse?

Photo: AP

Previously:
The Weekly Rewind: We Want Our Fun TV

Top Ten New Shows: #1 - "Fringe"

Bryan Christian — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:23:00 GMT

You tell us, kids. Are we supposed to not be pins-and-needles about a show that's half-X-Files, half-every-J.J. Abrams-show ever? Are we supposed to be turned off by early reports that the pilot's a little underwhelming, or the empty rows at its Comic-Con panel, or the fact that it's co-created by the team responsible for Transformers? 'Cause we are, actually, a little – and yet, despite all that, we're still more hopeful about getting wrapped up in this show (which in a nutshell tells the tale of a weird, worldwide conspiracy that causes the FBI to ally themselves with mad scientists) than in any of the other new shows this fall. Don't get us wrong: J.J. Abrams is due for another failure right about now; our money's just on it being his big-budget Star Trek reboot that flops. (There, we said it.)

And, like we said a while back, Joshua Jackson could be the next TV-era Clooney if he plays his cards right -- and there's no way we'd miss that. It's Pacey Witter, for God's sake!

Fringe (Tuesdays at 8PM EST) premieres Tuesday, September 9 at 8PM EST on FOX

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #2 - "True Blood"

Bryan Christian — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Loyal readers will know that we've been skeptical of HBO's original programming department the last few months. But we hope you understand: we'd really like for them to get back on track. Is True Blood gonna get 'em there? We think maybe. If we were to line up our favorite HBO dramas -- Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire – we'd say that the most important thing they share in common isn't crime or profanity. It's their obsession with how criminals and outlaws mangle and subvert the language. Remember all those half-finished jokes on the corners and in the squad cars of Baltimore, or those misheard references marblemouthed by agitated Jersey hoods? There's an angry intelligence behind those gags, one that wants to know what makes you so smart that you talk like a normal person, huh? We love that, and it something that's been sorely missing from the HBO lineup of late.

Which leads us back to True Blood, a series that not only promises some kick-ass vampire effects and a showrunner who was responsible for assembling one of the finest and most surprising acting ensembles of the decade – but also holds the slim possibility that vampires will become the next subculture we find ourselves obsessed with every Sunday night. As fans of the "Southern Vampire" novels will already know, in the world of True Blood, many vampires are basically trying to go straight, living publicly in the world and surviving on a Japanese-produced synthetic blood substitute – and occasionally being hunted for their own blood, which produces narcotic effects when ingested by humans. That's a complicated setup, playing on what we know about junkies, criminals, and any number of other subcultures. We got high hopes that their take on the culture clash between humans and the undead comes with plenty of blood, sure... but maybe it's own juicy patois to boot.

True Blood (Sundays at 9PM EST) premieres Sunday, September 9th at 9:00 PM EST on HBO

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #3: "90210"

Bryan Christian — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:31:00 GMT

The pilot's under lock and key, and the critics aren't getting a sneak peek – but reports from the cast have indicated that even if The CW's much heralded 90210 reboot will not feature Tori Spelling, it will have a BJ in the first episode. You just try to keep us away from this one.

What? Are you concerned that the good name of the original series is gonna get ruined with a parade of snarky, coked-up L.A. trustfunders? Really? Where were you when, um, this and this? This ain't fiction, baby; it's practically journalism. Our only concern is that, as some blogs are hinting at, they've cut Jessica Walter – a.k.a. Lucille Bluth – out of the show entirely. Guys, if she seems square to you, put a drink in her hand! (Oh, whew!)

90210 (Tuesdays at 8pm EST) premieres NEXT TUESDAY, September 2 at 8PM EST.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #4 - "Life On Mars"

Bryan Christian — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

There are lots of reasons to be nervous about Life on Mars. It's yet another reworking, this time of a much revered British sci-fi-tinged procedural. It's had a troubled history getting to the ABC lineup, undergoing substantial story reworking, last-minute cast replacements, and a change of venue in just the last few months. And it's a period piece, stranding its main character, modern day ~~San Francisco~~ New York cop Sam Tyler, played by Irish actor Jason O'Mara, in an era that scares costume designers, set dressers, and prop masters nationwide: the 1970's.

But if the downside is big, so's the upside. By which we mean: any show that decides to replace Colm Meaney with Harvey Keitel is moving in the right direction. (No offense, Colm; we love ya, but you can be a little broad sometimes.) Throw in Michael Imperioli as Tyler's partner, and Gretchen Mol and Lisa Bonet as Tyler's past and present girlfriends and, well, we're starting to hate this O'Mara kid for getting such a cushy gig. Now if they can just keep the props and costumes from getting embarrassing... Um, hey, ABC, if there's a Swingtown estate sale, be choosy.

Life on Mars (Thursdays at 10PM EST) premieres Thursday, October 9 at 10PM EST on ABC

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #5 - "The Mentalist"

Bryan Christian — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:32:00 GMT

Is there room on the airwaves for yet another Sherlock Holmes-style crimesolver? When they look like Simon Baker, we're thinking maybe.

Look, we're not gonna lie: we're a little surprised to see this show turn up so high in this list. But in our informal polling her at The Remote Island, The Mentalist kept showing up. Another CBS "mind of a killer" show? On CBS? Really? Well, maybe so. From the clips we've seen, Detective Patrick Jane looks to be a little trapped by his ability to read people like a book, as if the more he knows about his collleagues and their suspects, the more annoyed and disappointed he gets with the human race. And that's a creeping misanthropy that we can get behind, particularly when it's embodied by a guy like Baker, who's never more appealing than when he gets to play with a little self-loathing. (See: The Guardian, Land of the Dead, Smith.) Now, could it wind up being The Murderer Whisperer? Sure. And that's gonna keep us from watching how?

The Mentalist (Wednesdays at 9PM EST) premieres Wednesday, September 23 at 9PM EST on CBS.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #6 - "Sons of Anarchy"

Bryan Christian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:49:00 GMT

We think it says something about how starved we are for a particular kind of show that we're excited to see Sons of Anarchy. Best case scenario: FX's new biker drama, which comes to us from a writer from The Shield, turns out to be a sort of Deadwood on wheels, with Ron Perlman -- an actor long deserving a juicy role of the non-latex-and-prosthetics variety -- as its scary, unpredictable, black heart.

Worst case, the show winds up more like that another David Milch/HBO production, John From Cincinnati: an aimless, gratuitous, sundrenched mess more in love with its own eccentricities than anything else. Or, it could surpises

Sons of Anarchy (Wednesdays at 10PM EST) premieres Wednesday, September 3 at 10PM EST on FX

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #7 - "Do Not Disturb"

Bryan Christian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:27:00 GMT

Before you say anything about Jerry O'Connell, let's first all recognize that he was great in Stand By Me. Right? And in the intervening years, well, he's not been bad at doing what he does -- the occasional drama role like on Crossing Jordan, but mostly that genre of male humor and action that we'd normally call "pratfall handsome" (though in his case we might start that first word with an 'f'). And even if we suspect that deep in his heart, he'd like nothing more than strangle Brendan Fraser with his bare hands, you gotta admit: when you see the guy, like us, you're probably like "well, if he's good enough for Rebecca Romijn, he's good enough for me!"

But is he good enough for Arrested Development's MVP? Because the director of Do Not Disturb -- which, perhaps we should mention, is a multi-camera comedy set in a hotel where, no doubt, there are mixups and eccentrics aplenty -- is none other than Jason Bateman, who started his career as a sitcom director way back when he was part of the Hogan Family, and who we're positive picked up a few neat tricks during his three year run as Michael Bluth. Also, just for reference, it comes from an AD writer, and the first episode is apparently entitled "Work Sex," which, you know, we'd watch This Old House if it had an episode named that.

Will Fox show more forethought and consideration with Do Not Disturb than it did with Arrested Development, which got antagonized and rescheduled into oblivion. Oh, hell no. This show's got "hiatus" written all over it. Which is why we will be DVR'ing every episode.

Do Not Disturb (Wednesdays at 9:30 PM EST) premieres Wednesday, September 10 at 9:30 PM EST on FOX.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #8 - "Eleventh Hour"

Bryan Christian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Here's what we know about Eleventh Hour: it's got Rufus Sewell in it, who's one of those weird, wonderful actors who manages to get us interested even in total shite. It's a remake of a failed British sci-fi show which couldn't find an audience even though it starred Jean-Luc Picard. And it's from the fine folks at Bruckheimer Industries, meaning that we were half-expecting to hear Roger Daltrey scream at the end of that clip up top.

So, basically, all signs point to, well, total crap. And yet, we're still curious -- the promos are stylish and appealingly inscrutable, we love Sewell, and we're tickled pink to have a big, expensive, probably trashy counterpoint to the similarly-themed, presumably more intellectually supernatural Fringe. Also: unless it gets trounced by Life on Mars (kind of a longshot), CBS probably has enough scratch invested in it to ensure that it's around for at least 4 years -- CSI: New York, anyone? -- so we might as well get comfy, right?

Eleventh Hour (Thursdays at 10PM EST) premieres Thursday, October 9th on CBS.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #9 - "Kath & Kim"

Bryan Christian — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:31:00 GMT

The new fall season is almost here. Starting next week, the cable and broadcast networks will begin rolling out their new shows to see if they take off like castaways on an island or singing casino managers. Here, then, are the top ten new shows we're most looking forward to seeing.

We feel like the title of Kath & Kim -- like with Showtime's Queer as Folk adaptation -- suffers a little in translation. Which is weird, because of course the original show from which it was adapted was in English. But do you guys even get the pun in the title? Kath & Kim, "Kith and kin?" Mean anything to you? Nor us, but still: with a cast including Molly Shannon, John Michael Higgins, and Selma Blair (who we always enjoy in comedies, and yes, fully cop to crushing on way back when she was part of Zoe, Duncan, Jack, and Jane) we at least have to pay attention to the first few episodes, right? Those promos NBC has been running are funny, but seem to show the same four moments over and over again, which normally would be a huge red flag. But apparently, owing to the writers strike and Ben Silverman thinking he's the shit, Kath & Kim was picked up by NBC practically sight unseen, meaning that they've probably only had the pilot to cut those promos from. Which, yeah, you'd hope that a half-hour pilot would have more laughs than that... right? Um... Selma Blair, Selma Blair, Selma Blair...

Kath & Kim (Thursdays @ 9:30 PM EST) premieres Thursday, October 9th at 9:30 PM EST on NBC.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"

Top Ten New Shows: #10 - "Knight Rider"

Bryan Christian — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Back when we used to write for our sister blog Scanner, we subjected ourselves to the 2 hours of 2004-Maxim-back-of-book-style misery that was the Knight Rider reboot movie. And we stand behind what we said back then: should have made the new Michael Knight a woman. Then NBC could have gotten some new school, Galactica-style reboot juice AND had an excuse for the girl-on-girl action they only hinted at -- furtively, immaturely, and repeatedly -- in the backdoor pilot.

But, of course, they didn't. They went with some boring guy from a soap, and then even worse, they lost Will Arnett as the voice of K.I.T.T., and had to go with Val Kilmer, who God love him is still basically coasting off of Top Secret. (Well, come on; it was that good.)

Now, let's be clear: this doesn't make us upset or angry, certainly not as angry as this guy, because we've never considered the Knight Rider franchise to be sacrosanct or what-have-you. We're just a little steamed that we're not gonna get credited those two lost hours -- and however much we spend watching the reboot series -- the next time we buy a Mustang, considering how much Ford is backing this new show.

That all being said: even though we're not expecting much from the new KR series -- even with Gary Scott Thompson, former showrunner for our guilty fave Las Vegas, at the helm -- we've totally got to see it, if only to smell the smoke when it goes down in flames. Do we hate ourselves a little for that? Mmmm... could be. But dammit, if we don't keep Val Kilmer and America's car manufacturers solvent, who will?

Knight Rider (Wednesdays at 8PM EST) premieres Wednesday, September 24 at 8 PM EST.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"